American Cinematographer - July 1992 - 70

Welles checks

tive with

the

attached, as well as a negative mu¬

camera

Debrie

(a

Super

a

negative optical track

sic and effects track and

a
negative
optical composite. "We were flab¬
bergasted," Dawson recalls. "The
footage was not only magnificent,
but some shots were breathtaking.
You can see where Bergman got
some of his influences."
They were
excited about the footage, but the

Parvo) as he
prepares to
direct Cloutier.

sound was "atrocious," Saks re¬
members. "My feeling was that
Welles ran out of money. We know,
from talking to Beatrice, that there
was no

location sound and that

everything was dubbed in post.
Apparently Welles liked to work
this way. But it looked to me like a
lot of the dialogue dubbing was
done wild, not to picture. Much of
what was being said had nothing to
do with what

we saw on

screen."

Dawson reports

that there
were
major sync problems between
the actors' readings and their
onscreen performances. "The
gen¬
eral mix was very poor because the
music, dialogue and effects were
not equalized, and often the dia¬
logue was not even equalized
within the context of the

same

scene," he says. Because the ele¬
'Orson, what should I do in this
scene?' Daddy was the one who
told him to make The Last Picture
Show in black and white. He also
admired Roman Polanski very

much, and Burt Reynolds

after
he stopped making Smokey and the
-

Bandit movies."

Welles-Smith

was

in¬

spired by her father's devotion to
cinema without taking the same
career path herself. She had a
cameo in Chimes of Midnight and
tried brief careers as a model and an

equestrienne before launching her
own line of
beauty products. But
she shares her father's passion for
films, and admires the meticulous
care

which he devoted to each

project. She believes that if he were
alive today, he wouldn't take it
upon himself to instigate the resto¬
ration of Othello. "He didn't like to

old things," she says. "It
was always 'On to the next project.'
go back to

68

The Othello team

began
considering those technical options
when financing to restore the film
finally came in. Producer/director
Arnie Saks was brought to
Dawson's attention by a mutual

ments were on

business associate, and he recalls
the state of the original elements

one knows how the
original audio
work was done. "Everyone in¬
volved in that part of the process

prior to the restoration

process.
"The 35mm nitrate was a combina¬
tion of things that Welles had

was

optical negative throughout the
soundtrack," Dawson adds. No

has since

passed away," Saks

ex¬

plains.

grabbed around Europe," Saks re¬

Welles used different mi¬

calls. "We even think some of the
16mm was shot and blown up to
35. Some parts have dupe negative
in nitrate." Saks and Dawson did a
video transfer at Chicago's Univer¬
sal Studios "just to see it," Saks ex¬

crophones during the four-year
production. "He didn't shoot cross¬
cutting, or have two shots going in
his different cutting patterns," Saks

plains. "We didn't want to project
the dupe negative, but the nitrate
rolls in the sealed container may
have been the only source of the
film." Fearful of damaging the rolls,
Dawson and Saks didn't open the
container until they were in a con¬

But if someone else did it, he'd be
thrilled. He'd be fascinated by some
of the technology that exists today."

Dawson worked from a dupe nega¬

American

July 1992

Cinematographer

optical negative, the

distorted and many of
the effects could not be heard. "An
overall hiss level was built into the
music

trolled situation.
At

Universal, Saks and

observes. "He didn't even shoot in
the same locations. I could see
doubles in a fight scene where the

puncher and the punchee aren't the
same in a
close-up. You can see
how Welles would insert footage to
cover a

totally different location,

and do his best to mask it."
With all of his pressures as
a producer/director, Welles
may
not have

actually spoken his longer
speeches on camera. Saks points to
American Cinematographer - July 1992

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